I can picture it as vividly as if it were happening now: Metal desk, giant green screen computer, notebook paper pad.
I had a 4×6” photograph of the neighborhood.
It is the neighborhood I would later come, once again, to live in.
I was about ten years old, and something in me said to write.
I had actually been doing it for a while by then.
By age five, I had written a book titled, “The Famr and the Hors.”
(I clearly did not have spell-check or an editor yet)
I can remember sitting at that desk on that spring day, feeling like what I was meant to write was my story, but, I didn’t know how to start it, so I just sat there, feeling the urge to record it, while not knowing how to do it, exactly, until I just gave up and told myself I’d come back to it.
Little did I know that the real culprit of my writer’s block was simply that it is
pretty hard to write much of a story of your life when you are only 10.
The years would pass, and the passion would stay.
In 9th grade, I remember our class being assigned to write and illustrate our own versions of a children’s book by our English teacher.
I put a lot of effort into that little book, and will never forget getting it back with an “I think you may have a real future as an author/illustrator” post-it note written on it.
It was the first time I could remember being told such a thing, being validated in that way,
and for 30 years now, I have carried that Post-it note as a part of me as encouragement.
I sometimes wonder if that first day at that desk was me stepping into some kind of personal destiny.
I look at my writing now, and how it fulfills me, pushes me, and I wonder if this is perhaps
the answer to what started out as a ten-year-old’s version of a prayer.
For decades now I have written about my life:
Facebook posts, blog posts, and here.
I have recorded the births of my children in detail, moves that nearly killed me, my deep heart aches over losses, and victories that I have had.
I wish I could tell 10 year old me, frustrated at not being able to come up with anything, that I would write the story of my life. It would just take decades to do it.
I like to imagine that one day, along with a jewelry box of old Santa letters and lost teeth I’ve saved, my girls will truly discover all of it, and they will realize the things I valued, where I placed my trust and my time.
I hope they will read and be able to more deeply understand my love for them.
These days I see my writing as more of a purpose than a hobby.
I was given words so that I would speak them.
They have shifted from just cute stories about my kids and my home,
and become, in my mind, the entire reason I was even put here.
I believe Each of us has a purpose, and a calling that we are here to fulfill.
People have tried to silence me, and make what I say more palatable, even though sometimes truth calls for discomfort, a bit.
This last decade, however, with all of its twists and heartbreaks, has done one thing very well:
It has conditioned me to cast fear aside and to stand on my beliefs more firmly.
It has taught me that no other person’s opinion matters more than what character shows about a person in the end.
Now I use my writing to tell a different kind of story:
To call people to recognize justice, to remember the importance of discernment, and how important it is to show love to their fellow man.
I use it as a reminder of what goodness really is,
and oh, how we are all in need of that.
These days I feel like I was given this dream nearly four decades ago, because I could be trusted to cling to, and stay true to it.
I would come to see it as not about me at all.
The story I would write would be about all of us, how we are all similar in so many ways: Inextricably connected.
I couldn’t think of what to write that day, because the story was still to be written;
The body of work, still to be collected.
It would be made up of observing the love and warring of people:
The way we hurt one another and make up.
It would be made up of everything from witnessing kindnesses between strangers to lessons we can learn from simply digging our hands in the dirt, and learning to be still.
My story would end up being about people, love, laughter, and things that lead to healing.
After all,
None of our stories are just meant to be about one life in one neighborhood.
Our stories are all written with the help of other hands, other people, a big, beautiful world of culture and influence that we are meant to grow from through the years.
Sometimes it takes us so long to realize that none of us ever end up writing our stories all alone in the end.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
